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Policy Watch is our regular policy update service, covering national and international developments in the world of education. We try to keep things simple, sharing the latest news and information with you through weekly updates, monthly summaries, papers and events.

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As head of UK education policy at Pearson, Steve’s been running the Policy Watch service for almost 20 years. He’ll keep you informed on all things education, along with the rest of his subscribers – there were more than 10,000 at the last count!

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According to a YouGov poll this week, education is one of two topics that voters believe is not being discussed enough in the current election campaign; the environment is the other.

The week summed up

Education did start the election from a fairly low base as seventh out of ten most popular voter issues but rose for a while to fourth and clearly remains an important concern for many, so what’s going on, why the scant attention? One reason is that politicians have been fixated by the top three issues of health, wealth and welfare, let alone the more recent issue of the SNP, even if as the poll shows, voters are becoming increasingly tired by the heavy focus on Scotland in particular. Another reason, as Aditya Chakrabortty highlighted in a widely trended piece in The Guardian this week, is that politicians have become increasingly distant from people’s real concerns “democratic leaders have parted ways with their voters,” he argued. A third reason is that there is no dramatic new political vision for education heaving into sight as there was with Michael Gove in 2010 and Tony Blair in 1997; little therefore to get your teeth into.

But there is a fourth, perhaps more significant reason, and that as the survey by The Key and Ipsos Mori indicates and can be seen in Friday’s headline below, is that actually there’s little in the manifestos or in what politicians are saying either to get excited about or that gets to the root of current problems. Politicians may talk about school brands, performance management and college responsiveness but the real issues as the latest survey shows are about constant change, teacher workload, funding and the quality of teaching.

In fairness, there have been a number of education developments this week with Nicky Morgan pledging to protect minority languages, Tristram Hunt highlighting further possible 14-19 reform and Nick Clegg hinting at Lib-Dem interest in heading up any future education dept but whether these are the sorts of announcements to galvanise debate on education, we’ll have to wait until two weeks to know.

People/organisations in the news this week

Nicky Morgan who pledged that a future Conservative government would protect GCSEs and A levels in minority subjects

Tristram Hunt who indicated that a future Labour government may well look at replacing GCSEs with a single Bacc award at some point over the next decade

The Labour Party who pulled together pledges on the minimum wage, tuition fees and internships into a manifesto pledge for young people

The Lib-Dems who re-iterated their education manifesto pledges in the form of a ‘Five Point Plan’ for teachers and parents and published a new strategy for the creative industries

The FT who wrote a piece about how overseas demand was fuelling a boom in London universities

The HE Policy Institute (HEPI) who have created a so-called ‘Wall of Shame’ of current disingenuous HE election pledges and issues

Alex Salmond who has been awarded an honorary degree from Glasgow university

Nolan Smith who has been promoted to director of Finance at HEFCE from 1 May 2015

Megan Dunn who has been elected to succeed Toni Pearce as president of the National Union of Students

The National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) who set out a list of ten policies for an incoming government to help improve adult learning provision

The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) who officially launched its new website of resources and guidance to help providers adopt the new Prevent requirements

Ken Robinson, the influential educational polemicist, whose latest book on developing creative schools was praised by Tristram Hunt and others in an article in The Guardian

The SSAT who reported on the work of its Vision 2040 group which is attempting to set out a new vision for education for over the next 25 years

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) who published a route map and 10-point plan to help improve teacher recruitment

Geoff Smith, vice-chairman of the UK Maths Trust, who argued that it was counter-productive for high-fliers in maths to take their GCSEs and A level early and that they would be better served by being stretched in their current work than fast tracked

The Conversation who examined the issue of choice and provision of primary school places

NFER who listed five questions schools might want to ask when choosing a baseline assessment scheme.

Tweet(s) of the week

“Revision: just go to the movies, teachers say.” @SchoolsImprove

“We don’t need digital detox but there is a need to rethink our relationship with technology.” @JISC

“J.Hattie suggests every school should have an expert in interpreting data and evidence.” @tes

“There’s now a moratorium on the ‘Shakespeare bard from pub’ joke. Anymore and you’ll be bard from participating.” @tes

Acronym(s) of the week

Prevent. A duty, set out in the recent Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, which requires education providers to help ‘prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’.

Quote(s) of the week

“It’s a big, hairy conversation that you have to begin early.” Tristram Hunt on reforming the 14-19 curriculum

“What we need is a period of calm and stability to help the changes of recent years to bed in and spread throughout the system.” Nicky Morgan on avoiding too much chopping and changing

“If you are a teacher, be assured the Liberal Democrats will get politics out of the classroom and give you the freedom you need to teach your pupils.” Nick Clegg re-assures teachers

“Unfortunately the electorate is at best armed with only an incomplete picture of what they can expect from any of these four Parties.” The Institute of Fiscal Studies assesses the spending plans of four of the main parties but is left scratching its head.

Number(s) of the week

0.3%. The amount of time given over to discussing HE in the current election campaign according to research from Loughborough University

64.3%. The success rate for 16-18 year olds in Functional Skills according to research identified by FE Week

1,000. The number of extra training places for nurses Labour is proposing from this Sept

600,000. The additional number of free childcare places the Conservatives are proposing

8.7. The number of hours a week of homework that a 15 year old Italian 15 year old typically faces according to research, the highest amongst EU countries. England comes in 15th on the chart, apparently with 4.9 hours a week per pupil

6½. The number of hours a day young people spend on social media and gaming consoles according to recent research.

What to look out for next week

It’s been manifesto week with Labour first out of the stalls on Monday followed in quick succession by most of the other Parties as the week progressed.

The week summed up

The manifestos have come in all shapes and sizes with the Lib-Dems at the moment claiming the prize for the heftiest at 157 pages, and at 70+, the Conservatives listing the most proposals. There have also been some interesting settings for the launches, a UTC in Swindon for the Conservatives and a pub in Essex for UKIP but how much they really tell us and how much they’ve really changed things is open to question. The polls have changed only marginally during the week and voters have remained at best bemused and at worst disenchanted, leading the commentator Andrew Marr to ponder why it’s proving to be ‘such a tooth-grindingly awful election.’ His conclusion? “The Parties have chosen to refuse to tell us what we need to know.”

How far this relates to education depends on where you start: whether you have an interest in a particular phase of learning or have heard it all before? It’s true that a lot of the proposals have been touted around for some time but there are notable points of interest for each sector whether it’s Labour’s wrap-around childcare, the Conservatives’ EBacc condition or the Lib-Dems’ funding guarantees. Funding has inevitably featured prominently with the Lib-Dems making a big pitch not just with their cradle-grave funding protection but also for the prospect of extra funding in the second half of the next Parliament if growth continues. However as the Institute of Fiscal Studies has reminded us, further cuts are inevitable and even protected areas could suffer from rising costs in areas like staffing and pensions so a sense of perspective helps.

As to what stands out? From the Conservatives it’s probably the requirements for 11 yr olds to retake tests, for secondary schools to take EBacc subjects to ensure an Outstanding Ofsted grade, for the scrapping of more ‘low-level’ provision and the use of more performance data for FE and for a quality framework for HE. For Labour, it’s the return of the extended school model at primary, the focus on teacher professional development, schools standards and vocational learning at secondary, the creation of specialist Technical Institutes and pursuit of English and maths in FE and the cut in tuition fees and development of the tech degree route in HE. The Lib-Dems would no doubt point to their commitment to the Pupil Premium, their focus on a core curriculum and parental guarantee for schools, their Young Person’s Discount Card for 16-21 year olds and their pledge to establish a review of HE finance sometime in the next Parliament.

The TES has revealed this morning that Labour has the teachers’ vote although in fairness, there’s a strong body of support for the Conservatives as well. Everything still to play for.

People/organisations in the news this week

The Conservatives who confirmed proposals to protect per-pupil funding for 5-16 yr olds, introduce resit tests for 11 year olds, support the importance of core subjects in schools, create FE National Colleges and 3m apprenticeships, and introduce a new framework for ‘high-quality’ HE teaching, in their manifesto

Labour who underlined proposals in their manifesto for protected budget funding for 2-19 yr olds, maximum class sizes in primary, fully qualified and trained teachers, a ‘gold-standard’ vocational route and a reduction in HE tuition fees to £6000

The Lib-Dems who pledged to put education at their heart of their manifesto and back it with protected funding for 2-19 yr olds and with additional money from any economic growth evident from 2017/18

The Green Party whose manifesto included plans to scrap SATs, league tables, Ofsted and HE tuition fees but did include proposals to increase funding for each sector

The Institute of Fiscal studies who provided a further useful report on how the three major Party’s spending plans for schools were shaping up; link here

Sir Anthony Seldon who has been appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Buckingham University from this September

TES Global whose acquisition of Australian company UniJobs will bring together an extensive global network of university opportunities

Gordon McKenzie, Deputy Director for HE strategy/policy at BIS who will take over as chief executive of Guild HE from July

The FE Trust for Leadership which released its first publication and announced its second round of bids under its grants programme

Three East London colleges (Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge) who, as more cuts loom, are getting together to share some resources and facilities

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) who are drawing up a 10-point plan to help overcome teacher recruitment concerns

The Sutton Trust who published a Social Mobility Index for parliamentary constituencies in England highlighting best and worst for improving social mobility for young people

Tackle behaviour, strengthen teaching, conduct regular assessment, provide high-quality experience; four steps to be taken in in order if you have to turn a school round according to a head who has been there, seen it and done it

Tim Oates who set out to debunk some of the myths still perpetuated about the Finnish education system such as there is no inspection system and there are no private schools: there is and there area, but different

Primary school parents who have been finding out this week if their offspring have gained places at their preferred primary school from this September

“Which five-letter word means a stupid or silly woman in Mexican Spanish, a university canteen in German and in the English-speaking world an organisation founded in 1946 for people with high IQs?” One of 10 started questions answered correctly by the captain of the winning team on this year’s University Challenge (Answer: Mensa).

Tweet(s) of the week

“Mediocre failures? My children are simply being what they are.” @ssat

“College of Teaching has no benefit to profession says union.” @tes

“Labels are for jam jars not children.” @osirisedu

“How did we get to a point where ‘we’ll ensure good primary schools’ is the pinnacle of school policy?” @miss_mcinerney

Acronym(s) of the week

FETL. The Further Education Trust for Leadership, an independent charity and think tank set up to help share and develop leadership in the FE sector.

Quote(s) of the week

“The next five years are about turning the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family.” David Cameron on the good life as he launched his Party’s manifesto

“I do not offer a government that tries to carry on from where the last Labour government left off.” Ed Miliband on a new beginning as he launched his Party’s manifesto

“The Liberal Democrats will add a heart to a Conservative government and a brain to a Labour one.” Nick Clegg on winning hearts and minds as he launched his Party’s manifesto

“Our position is perfectly clear; we want our country back.” Nigel Farage on being clear as he launched his Party’s manifesto

“Last time round it was a piece of cake compared to what might happen this time.” Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell on how difficult Coalition arrangements might be this time

“Further education is a Rubik’s cube of a thing, adept at dealing with colourful twists, turns and about-turns in policies, purses, politicians and partners.” Dame Ruth Silver in her introduction to the first publication from the FE Trust for Leadership.

Number(s) of the week

£7bn. How much the Conservatives are promising for ‘good’ school places during the next Parliament

70,000 teachers and 10,000 learning assistants. How much the Lib-Dems claim their extra cash for schools is worth

74 and 52. The number of pledges in the Conservative and Labour manifestos respectively

157. The number of pages in the Lib-Dem manifesto making it the largest by far so far.

What to look out for next week

The week the election campaign moved up a gear with some important policy announcements including a number on education.

The week summed up

On Wednesday, the Conservatives announced that 11 year olds who hadn’t reached a level 4 in their Key Stage 2 English and maths SATs would have to retake them in the first year of secondary or as Nicky Morgan described it, they would be ‘resitted.’ The announcement, which was trailed a month or so ago by the Education Secretary, has perhaps predictably not been universally acclaimed: “Eat, sleep, test, repeat,” tweeted one critic pretty much capturing the mood of many. The government’s argument is that KS2 tends to be a platform if not a predictor for KS4, ‘only 7% of the 100,000 pupils who fail to reach level 4 at age 11 go on to secure the five good GCSEs including English and maths that are so important’ but for those concerned about the perils of a test-driven culture and its impact on children, the proposal adds a further concern. As for parents, the story here is that the Conservatives are considering encouraging schools to run maths classes for parents so that they can help with the homework. Ed Balls is perhaps one parent who wouldn’t need it. He was faced with the now obligatory maths challenge while out on the road this week, in this case: what’s 6 x 7; he got the answer right.

A day after the Conservatives made their KS2 announcement, Labour went the whole hog and launched its education manifesto. Its theme, very much Labour’s theme tune at present, was that things could be better and as if to emphasise the point, the manifesto listed 24 things a Labour government would do to make things better in areas like school standards, vocational learning, careers guidance and a fully qualified profession. The proposals, many of which build on the Party’s independent Task Force Report which was chaired by Professor Chris Husbands and reported just over a year ago, have been cautiously welcomed by the profession, with the promised funding for a face-to-face careers guidance system particularly popular. The emphasis is very much on preparing young people for a changing world, perhaps a deliberate attempt to distance things from the recent bout of qualification-driven reform and suggest that the Party is keen to tackle what has long been regarded as the Achilles heel of the English education system, namely vocational education and training.

A week which started with a Guardian editorial suggesting that schools so far ‘have ranked only as a second order issue’ in this election has ended with schools higher up the order. It shows how much things can change in a week.

People/organisations in the news this week

The Conservatives who announced that as part of their education plans they would require pupils who didn’t reach level 4 in their SATs in Year 6 to resit them in Year 7

The Labour Party who launched their education manifesto with a focus on school standards, vocational learning and carers guidance

The Australian government who has agreed to fund research into a potential new quality framework for international higher education agents many of whom operate without external regulation

Professor Charles Crook of Nottingham University who tackled the issue of whether university lectures should be automatically recorded and concluded that while it could overegg performance at the expense of student attendance, it should remain an option

The CBI whose latest economic-activity survey reported good growth in many sectors in the first quarter of this year and business optimism remaining high

The RSA’s Matthew Taylor who wrote a blog about the three dimensions of efficacy and how they help generate creative tension

Bath, Loughborough and Sheffield who came first, second and third respectively in the latest Times Higher student satisfaction survey. The universities of Surrey and Newcastle moved into the top ten for the first time

Guardian columnist Fiona Millar who looked into some of the manifestos coming from different parts of the education world and found the issue of school inspections emerging as one of the dominant themes

80 former and current school leaders who penned a letter to the Daily Mail calling on Labour to stick with current academy freedoms

Independent fact checkers fullfactorg, who looked at the issue of qualified v unqualified teachers and concluded that while there was no clear evidence to prove qualified teachers were any better or worse than unqualified ones, subjects such as combined science, music and biology had more qualified teachers and subjects like citizenship, engineering and media studies had more unqualified teachers (based on the number of teachers with relevant subject degrees)

The Read On, Get On campaign which called on politicians to support and invest in a new strategy that would improve the teaching of reading especially for disadvantaged and older primary school children

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) who warned that strike action could be on the cards later this year if the autumn spending review leaves schools facing more cuts

Next Friday, the closing date for applications from secondary schools seeking to host the novel Head of Wellbeing scheme, funded by Nuffield Health and due to be piloted from Sept.

Tweet(s) of the week

"The Conservatives are the union for parents-fighting to ensure more discipline, more rigour and zero-tolerance of mediocrity.” @David_Cameron

“Miliband: our task is to give our children the best chance to succeed; that’s what the Labour education manifesto is all about.” @ed_ontap

Acronym(s) of the week

EFA. Education for All, the global education movement launched 25 years ago by UNESCO, UNICEF and others to help provide quality basic education for children, young people and adults and where a new set of pledges are due to be agreed at next month’s World Education Forum.

Quote(s) of the week

“Funding will be a challenge. So will improving results. This is a system in a state of flux.” The Guardian editorial considers how the school system is looking at the start of the general election campaign

“The cold truth is that there is no magic wand we can wave to take away the double squeeze of public finance and demographic pressure.” Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt on facing reality

“Trusting teachers is at the heart of our school reforms.” Education Secretary Nicky Morgan on the Party’s education pitch

“The NUT does not think that most teachers can work to full efficiency to age 68 and beyond.” The NUT calls for an independent review of the retirement age for teachers.

Number(s) of the week

9% or 40%. Two figures used this week to claim how many teachers leave in their first year. As Sam Freedman (Director of Research at Teach First) explained in his blog, the first figure is the accurate one, the second figure includes those who trained but never started

£50m. How much Labour is pledging to put in to support its new careers guidance service for young people

100,000. The number of 11 year olds who, according to official figures fail to reach a required level 4 in their English and maths Key Stage 2 SATs

58m. The number of children across the world who don’t have access to primary school education according to the latest update on its global education targets from UNESCO.

A shorter Policy Eye summary this week partly because it’s a shorter working week but partly also because purdah is upon us meaning that there are now restrictions on Dept activity while the election campaign is on.

The week summed up

Most of the education news this week has come from the ATL (Association of Teachers and Lecturers) Annual Conference where Labour’s Education spokesman Tristram Hunt warmed the hearts of many delegates by pledging to support a changing role for Ofsted which could see it operating within a more self-regulated system: “I want to see an inspectorate that moves beyond box-ticking and data-dependence.” This may be some time away and not everyone’s convinced but for the moment, it’s issues such as workloads, teacher recruitment, funding, the dangers of social media and curriculum matters that have been concentrating minds. Teachers have many concerns, two delegates at the Conference for instance bucked the trend and spoke out in favour of the reforms to science practicals showing that issues often run quite deep. Easter is Conference season for many teacher unions and the next few days see two of the other big bodies, the NUT and NASUWT, also hold their Annual Conferences where no doubt many of the same issues will be hotly debated.

Education has so far not featured prominently in any of the speeches or launches of the current election campaign which by most people’s reckoning has got off to a slow start. There’s been the traditional trading of figures on tax rises, VAT and business rates, leaving us as the FT put it “at risk of drowning in dodgy data.” That said the last three elections have followed a similar pattern and things may take off tonight when we have the seven-way debate of the Party Leaders, orchestrated perhaps but tackling four big election questions in set order. Views are mixed about how far such debates alter rather than reinforce perceptions but studies suggest that at least 25% of voters change their minds during the campaign so there’s a lot to play for.

As for the policies, so far only Plaid Cymru has come out with its Manifesto committing for instance to a new all-through national curriculum, a new independent exams regulator and higher education “in principle” being free for all. Conservative and Labour Party Manifestos are due out the week after next by which time things may be clearer…or not.

Top headlines this week

‘Exams put children under ‘vile, cruel pressure,’ head of Wellington says.’ (Monday)

People/organisations in the news this week

The Labour Party who launched its Business Manifesto promising among other things to introduce a Tech Bacc for 16-18 year olds, Tech Degrees and high quality apprenticeship standards elsewhere to help strengthen the talent pipeline into work

Shadow Education Minister Tristram Hunt who listed a new Education Bill on vocational training and potential changes to Ofsted inspections in a number of prospective Labour education proposals in a keynote speech to the ATL Conference

Plaid Cymru who launched its Election 2015 Manifesto promising among other things to create an independent exams regulator

Sir David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor at Nottingham University, who will take over as chair of the Russell Group from this September

Sir David Bell who in the latest in The Conversation’s State of the Nation series, reflected on the education reforms of the last five years and re-iterated his belief in the need for an independent body to help steer curriculum and assessment developments’

The latest edition of the Institute of Education’s London Review of education which focuses the current state of vocational education

The Association of Colleges and UK Commission for Employment and Skills who got together to publish a guide on accessing labour market intelligence for college managers

The AoC and AELP who called for Parliamentary scrutiny of the Employer Ownership Pilots scheme after it was revealed that recruitment was much lower than expected

The Local Government Association who called for further devolution of skills funding and commissioning in the third and final report in its ‘Realising Talent’ series

The Sixth Form Colleges’ Association who were disappointed to discover that on the final day of this Parliament the government had rejected its pleas for VAT reform

Ofqual who listed eight objectives in its latest corporate plan published this week

The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) who have been selected to run the proposed new National Reference Tests that will be used to help anchor standards in GCSE English and maths from 2017

The Education Endowment Foundation who announced five new ‘research’ trials covering maths, teacher impact and parental engagement.

Tweet(s) of the week

“If every teacher influences school policy you get better results than Attila the Hun style leadership.” @TES

“I want schools to be kinder, more positive places to work where fear of Ofsted doesn’t impact best practice.” Mary Bousted @ATL Conference

“Spoon-fed private pupils less able to cope at university.” @ed_ontap

“Spend six hours a week of family time to ‘tame’ a teenager.” @Teachit

Acronym(s) of the week

LMI. Labour market intelligence, what most good education providers need to help ensure provision meets learner and employer needs.

Quote(s) of the week

“What I learnt from these visits was that few pupils at primary or secondary school knew their times tables.” The Schools Minister reflects on what he learnt from some school visits in his final speech before Parliament was dissolved

“What we need is to chart a course away –carefully, slowly, consensually-from the exam factory model of school improvement.” Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt answers a question on Labour education policy in the Guardian’s ‘Ask a Minister’ series

“Education is on the front page of our manifesto and should be an immediate priority in the next Parliament.” The Lib-Dems on education

“Perhaps the time has come to slay the sacred cow of progress.” NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby in his latest blog on the problems of pinning everything on pupil progress.

Number(s) of the week

90%. The level below which student satisfaction shouldn’t fall according to the FE Commissioner who listed 20 warning signs for college governors to look out for

300. The number of schools likely to be asked to participate in the new National Reference Tests announced by Ofqual.